A trip through the mountains to Kosmas

Then we drive into the mountains, from the coast of Livadi through the village of Leonidio, where we were yesterday, through an increasingly narrow valley towards the village of Kosmas. According to the navigation it is less than an hour away but it takes us at least twice as long. And that is not only because we occasionally have to wait for a goatherd who crosses the road with his flock, but also because we regularly get out to admire this wild landscape.

Some peaks on the Peloponnese are more than 2,000 meters high but we see vegetation almost everywhere and the plains seem to be very fertile. Without those fertile fields, no such powerful cities as Mycene and Sparta would have flourished in ancient times.
Along the roads and on flat sections we regularly see walls with an olive grove or other plants being cultivated.

There are just over a million people living in the Peloponnese, but 60% of them live in the larger cities and in the interior you find mainly small hamlets and villages.
Halfway the route, where the road makes a few sharp hairpin turns, we come across a sign with Moni Elonis, but we do not realize that Moni is a monastery and drive on. In retrospect, we see on the internet that we have missed a beautiful monastery against the rocks. So we always have something for a next time.

From sea level we have risen to 1,100 meters altitude when we arrive in the village of Kosmas. The area that goes with it is more than 85 square kilometers but less than 400 people live there.
Like many mountain villages, it has a central square where the main buildings are located and of course the restaurants. In the past, the market was also held here. It is striking that there are few low-traffic zones in this type of villages, the square is often also the intersection between various roads.

That we are at such a height we notice from the temperature, it is fresh to sit outside but as long as it stays dry we do not want to sit inside. And to my big surprise there is wifi and speedy too.
For a few euros we get an extensive lunch and that tastes pretty nice even though I have no idea what we have eaten. The Greeks grill a lot of their meat and leave it sometimes lying too long so that I have to scratch off the black crusts but here that is not the case. Yummy!

In the village there are a few memorials because in the war of independence (1821-1827) many villagers fought against the Turks and in the 2nd World War the village was partly destroyed by the Germans as retaliatory action for a raid by partisans on Italian soldiers. The village was later rebuilt in the traditional mountain village style with thick walls to keep it cool in the summer and warm in the winter
For those who have enough of the sea and the heat in the summer months this is a wonderful place to go.

When we drive back we can clearly see how the mountain roads meander through the landscape. I like to see the pattern, but I do not like to have to drive them so much, although Teije loves it. And when he does, I think he can stay a bit further away from the side of the road when we are near steep slopes, often without a crash barrier. But it is a beautiful ride and it is only at the beginning of the evening that we reach our apartment where it is a lot warmer than in Kosmas and we can still sit outside for a long time.